Cost of the Tabernacle.
Those responsible for doing and completing the work was of
course Moses, the Lord’s overseer to whom was entrusted the schematics, the
working plan for and responsibility to supervise the entire work.
Then there were
the Levites, by the hand of Ithamar, son of Aaron the priest; Bezalel, son of
Uri, son of Hur of the tribe of Judah, whom we have already seen was the chief
artisan directly under the inspiration of God and as directed by Moses. Then there was Oholiab son of Ahisamach of
the tribe of Dan, skilled in the art of engraving and skillful in the work of
embroidery, and crafting all the required colors of blue, and purple, and
scarlet and working with fine linen.
Now the
gold that was used for the work that had to be done within the holy place was
twenty nine talents of gold, and seven hundred and thirty shekels; and the
silver used in the work was one hundred talents of silver, and one thousand,
three hundred and seventy five shekels.
While it is
difficult to express in purely financial terms using today’s market as a point
of comparison, it would be fair to say that God demanded no small sacrifice for
the adornment of the temple of His
presence, but also that the people too spared no effort to build, adorn, and
beautify, the tabernacle wherein the presence of the Lord would abide; but even
so, in so far as a comparison may be made, it would be fair to say that by
today’s standards, and counting only the gold and silver used, excluding labor
costs, the cost of the acacia wood, and linen and dyes and so on, the amount of
gold and silver alone would exceed fifteen million dollars in value. More
No comments:
Post a Comment